questioner

Using data from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) World Economic Database, we can divide the above greenhouse gas emissions statistics by the country’s respective GDP (corrected for purchasing power parity to ensure a more direct comparison). This will reveal the environmental footprint that each nation imposes on the world per unit of economic prosperity created for its citizens.

In this way, if Russia generated $2.0 trillion of GDP in 2012, this means Russia produced 16.25 tons pf greenhouse gasses per dollar prosperity it created for its people. China ($8.2 trillion) produced 0.73 tons of greenhouse gasses per dollar and India ($1.8 trillion) produced 0.72 tons per dollar. The U.S. ($16.2 trillion), that poster child for capitalist countries perennially accused of acting as bad world citizens, produced the lowest level of greenhouse gas emissions per dollar of economic prosperity: just 0.36 tons per dollar of GDP.

questioner

TripleD (and all), I read a very very interesting article. I hope it is something all can be okay with and glad about. I will need to continue it.

If greater economic activity is essential for raising the material prosperity of a society, and the level of material prosperity is roughly reflected by a higher level of gross domestic product (GDP) per capita, then this means we should be less concerned about reducing aggregate pollution and be more concerned about producing economic prosperity with the smallest environmental footprint. In other words, a much more meaningful statistics would be:

Which country produces the least amount of greenhouse gasses per dollar of GDP that is generate for citizens to enjoy?

TripleD

"Redistributing money to the 3rd World by taking it off us. Just what I said at the start." Just what part of phony story / conspiracy did you not understand and why do you continue to pump such BS? Why not tell me how you have now backed me into a corner now? :>)

TripleD

OK, So then where did you get that it was the U.N. 'making the US out to be the "baddest" guy in terms of climate change.'

Everything I see says "U.N. climate change report points blame at humans" not the United States in particular, except for a little bit of the crackpot fringe that says they are gunning for us to pay damages.

questioner

questioner

No, no, no. I can't copy and paste from here. But look at Kerry's comments where he says the US and China are the worst with emissions--leaving out Europe. I then looked to see who has the worse emissions. According to the UN it is the US because it should be looked at as per capita--of course that bumps China down quite a bit.

TripleD

Actually that is another one of the more famous U.N. conspiracy myths. In December 2011, the UN convened in Durban, South Africa to try and hammer out a deal over climate change. The deal stipulated that countries were “to begin a new round of talks on a new agreement in the years ahead,” noted theWashington Post. There were some other provisions as well hammered out in Durban, including the creation of a global fund set up to help poor countries tackle climate change.

But Fox News wasn’t having any of that, despite the fact that climate change threatens the long-term viability of the planet. On Fox and Friends, legal analyst Peter Johnson claimed that the agreement in Durban would set up an “international climate court of justice.” There is no mention of such a court in the final draft of the UN agreement. Johnson also claimed that the agreement mandates that the West pay “reparations” for climate change — a claim that is entirely misleading.

TripleD

Time will tell how serious Beijing really is but the fact that they made a big thing about publicizing this gives me some hope for the future.

Keep in mind that many of these factories are actually run by powerful state-owned companies, with links to politicians in the upper echelons of government. But for the first time, there is a requirement to publicly acknowledge the environmental impact of mass-scale production…and to take steps to go green.

TripleD

"Kerry making an agreement yesterday with the Chinese to decrease our car emissions, I'm not as on board with that." Yes and that will mean another loss in Horse Power for cars. I am glad I have my Road King Classic. It gets 40 plus mile per gallon and I can twist that throttle and hear those pipes roar.

I heard that China was going to force Chinese Companies to reveal their level of pollution.

Beijing has ordered 15,000 factories to report details about their emissions: in public, and in real-time. The decree also calls for details on the release of pollutants like wastewater and heavy metals. This is a real first in China – an unprecedented mandate for transparency.

TripleD

"What would you like the USA to do about this global climate change?" The first thing we should do is stop living in denial and recognize there is a real problem here. There may be solutions that can be found in science. An example of that is UK researchers have developed a porous material that can preferentially soak up CO2 from the atmosphere. NOTT-202 is a "metal-organic framework" that works like a sponge, absorbing a number of gases at high pressures. Not a total solution, I know but promising research.

I know we cannot reduce our carbon footprint to zero and even if we could, developing nations would continue to raise the levels anyway. Does that mean we should throw up our hands and say their is nothing we can do about this? We need to understand the problem. I am sixty years old and I believe I may be dead long before this affects me, but I hate to see people just giving up.

Mtlhed

TD, Watchdog is trying to ask you a simple question but you have yet to answer it. What would you like the USA to do about this global climate change? It's been pointed out that even if the USA went absolutely nuts, shutting down all industry and anything else deemed by environmentalists to cause any impact whatsoever to the planet, essentially making us all cavemen, that climate would still change. Especially considering that the rest of the world would continue doing bad things to the planet. So again, what would you have us do?

TripleD

questioner, What is your answer here? "Groups that have higher degrees of self-reported patriotism, such as older people and whites, are also more likely to correctly name the country from which America gained its independence." "Only 66% of those aged 18-29 know that America gained its independence from England" Really, Even the 'white' 18-29 year olds? So what percentage of older white people feel that they are more patriotic?